


Hyngrende Hréoh

by hedgerowhag



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ambiguity, Hallucinations, M/M, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, elves creep the living shit out of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-03 20:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5305304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerowhag/pseuds/hedgerowhag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our father is a good man, I truly assure you. When there was scarcely anything to eat, he took his bow and quiver and told me to stay at home, to remain with my brother and sister while he was away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hyngrende Hréoh

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by creepy ass yule-tide winter (Ullr, looking right at u), [Emily Carroll](http://emcarroll.com/), [Ias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ias), my unhealthy obsession with making myself lose sleep, more or less [this playlist](http://8tracks.com/macraokra/gluggavedur), and people really fucking losing an opportunity with this goddamn AU trope. 
> 
> The title roughly translates from Old English to "hungered(/famished) tempest".

When the great frost came they took our father, of that I am  _certain_. 

He went to hunt beyond the shore after the ice crawled across the lake and the merchants could no longer come from over the water to share their wealth – we used to cut apart the ice but now our axes can’t pierce it. Good naturedly, the Laketown folk tightened their belts and huddled closer to their hearths – it will be a long winter, as always, we can brave it out.

We waited for a spell of warmth, but the sky remained grey and the snow kept on sweeping from over the mountains. Into the darker months the town fell and our hope seemed like an idle dream; our granaries began to empty and pantries became nests for rats and mice, but we couldn't remain angry for their hunger, after all, we all must eat.

Some folk went away over the frozen lake to pick at the ice until an entryway gaped in the black water below, wide enough to lower a fishing lure – but no more for it has grown so thick – and tempt out those sleeping silver creatures. The folk stayed out there for many hours every day, those tiny black figures on the ice, until meagre catch pulled. Our father went out to join those desperate people too, when he returned his hands were empty more oft than not.

He took me over the ice one day, before the black became grey, before Tilda and Bain were shaken from their kind dreams.

When we set away over the ice we came about a figure, sitting alone by an iced over fishing hole. The old man was hunched onto himself, the fishing rod slack in his hands. My father thought the man to be familiar so he went away to be sure for him to be well. But when he approached I saw him blanch, the white casting over his frost reddened face. He stalked back to me and pulled me away by the arm. It didn’t stop me from catching a glimpse: there was red trailing over the ice, so stark against the white. But, we must remember, we are not the only ones who hunger.

 

Our father is a good man, I  _must_  assure you, in that I cannot fault him. He was always good to the folk, even those to who he held no debt. He was the one who people turned to when the times were harsh, we cannot trust the Master of the town you see. Even after our mother died, and nothing was truly the same, our father remained strong for us – my siblings and I.

And yet, there were times when I thought it would all break.

I remember such a moment quite clearly. It happened on one night when I was woken by a noise from the house. I went to check on what it was and I found my father looking dazed and uncertain amid the open room where the moonlight spilled. When I called out to him, he turned with eyes fogged with sleep. I heard him whisper my mother’s name, he stepped to me as if wading through water, his arms reaching to me, almost touching. When I called out to him again he flinched as if I had struck him. With clear eyes he looked to me, horror written all over, and then he stalked out from the house.

I didn’t see him till morning.

 

-

She seemed so much like her mother. It must have been the moonlight and my sleep hazed mind, casting her into the image of who I wanted to see most. I almost reached for her, as a father never should.

But then she called for me.

I wanted to burn those thoughts out of my mind, to scold them with boiling water and red iron.

I couldn’t face the walls of my home till morning, I couldn’t look into her eyes till the days that followed.

-

 

Our father is a good man, I  _truly_  assure you. When there was scarcely anything to eat, he took his bow and quiver and told me to stay at home, to remain with my brother and sister while he was away. Should we find ourselves without firewood or grain he bade me go to the neighbours – they will provide for you, he assured.

 

-

It was arrogant, to depend on that misbegotten lake, the waters would be empty of any creature by the turn of the season. What would we do then? Where was I due to turn other than the woods? The others thought I was mad when I proposed the idea. Hadn’t you seen the bodies of those poor men on the ice? They asked.

Those blind fools.

How am I to forget that we are not the only ones that hunger?

-

 

I watched him as he went over the ice to the shore where the black wood stood.

We never go there, not children anyway, unless by the bidding of games and dares. Only the men go away to hunt in the forest – they don’t fear the fair ones. Though I am a woman grown, as I would dispute, I still shiver at the stories the children tell. They talk of the fair ones in the woods, who steal away the children from their parents, for they are just as hungry as our folk. They are beautiful, they say, so if you were to meet one of such creatures you would not wish to run.

 

On the first day our father was away I allowed Bain and Tilda to sleep for as long as they wished, later I fed them before they went out to play with the other children (out in the open, in the view of the town – no further). I bade them to return before the dark, before it became too cold for anyone to stray from the hearth.

The second day we spent the same, in the evening we huddled in the same bed – out of fear or the cold, I could not say. On the third day, there was no more food left for the day’s duration so when my brother and sister went away to play on the ice I went to the neighbours to ask for food.

 

A family of seven lived by us, a happy husband and wife and their five children. I used to play at battle with the eldest brother and sister, and then Bain took my place and then Tilda. It was the mother who opened the door to me, her dark face wide and smiling – I had never seen a single thrown crease her homely face. She embraced me in her thick warm arms and bade me inside.

We talked for some time by the fire and I felt the guilt grow for the reason of my visit, none of us were in the times of plenty you should know. But the lovely mother gave me as much food as she could spare without me even spilling a word of need for she knew of my father’s leave.

We ate well that night, and the three days after, but the fear only grew. I could see the questions make their circles in Bain’s and Tilda’s minds. Bain was old enough to know not to pry, he kept the fear to himself and the uncertainty of what the fortnight would bring. But Tilda didn’t know the same; I saw her eye flee to me, her mouth opening for a question to burst out but the words never came.

 

Though it seemed impossible, the days grew colder and darker. I made sure to avoid the ice whenever I could; they found more dead men out there, the red ropes of their innards spilled before them, throats ripped into ribbons. I tried to avoid the details, but I couldn’t escape the truth.

I stumbled on such a sight myself one morning. It was a young man, he lied on the ice facing skyward, his face contorted in an expression of terror. Like the others, his body was mangled: from the groin to the collar he was cut, allowing the soft pink and red contents of his carcass to spill onto the ice, shrivelled by the nightly frost. His neck was ruptured too, as if someone had set their teeth to the flesh and made a feast of it.

It was wolves, they said, or the starved mutts some held for dogs. They couldn’t say for sure.

After that, I kept Bain and Tilda indoors, even in daylight, I never had them out of my sight. What would I say to our father when he returns? How could I explain the death of my brother or sister? I promised him, after all.

 

Eventually, the day came that even Bain broke his vow of silence, he asked: “When will da come back?”

Our mother would have known what to say, she would have known what to tell Bain to make him forget our father’s absence. But all I replied was that I do not know, I wish I knew.

It has been too long for it to have been “some trouble on the road”, too long for our father to be “safe and sound”. I can’t help but think of all the possibilities, all the terrible things that dwell beyond the forest edge.

In the morning I tell Bain to get ready and help Tilda to do so too. During breakfast Tilda asks where we are going today, I say that they will be staying with the neighbours whilst I am away for a little while. We don’t speak for the rest of the morning.

Tilda loses all her coldness when the neighbours open the door and the children greet her with excited cries. When they forget my presence it’s just me and the kind mother. She asks me inside but I decline and ask her if she would mind my brother and sister while I am away – two days at most.

“I will treat them as my own,” She says as a solemn expression of grimness falls about her kind brown eyes and smiling mouth. The mother embraces me before I leave, her warmth burns against me like a smith’s furnace – I wish I didn’t have to let go.

 

We part. I leave the timber alleys of the town and make the first shaking step on the ice, I am determined not to look back, my eyes fixed on the path before me. There are no longer fishermen on the ice, they all would rather starve in their warm houses than be torn and displayed for the crows.

I try to forget those poor folk on the snow. I think of my father. I still remember where he entered the forest, there I shall too make my path.

 

There is no trail within the wood that has been tarnished by the human step, it is pure and wild, there is not a direction cleaned for my ease. I do not know for what sign I am searching of my father’s presence; I do not know if I should call for him or would it bring danger from the wood. After all, we are not the only one who fear the desperate moments.

I wander the forest for hours, hoping for a trail of old footprints in the snow, a sign of some other presence. But I find myself alone amongst the black barren trees, the mundane sky unchanging and uncertain of time. My feet are numbing, the cold air is scorching my chest. The sky is blackening. I need to rest.

The nook of the roots seems as comfortable as any other. I curl beneath the black oak, my knees clutched against my chest, eyes squeezed until I can only see the stars behind my eyelids. The world is silent, it does not comfort me.

The numbing cold pulls me into sleep but I awake amongst the dark when the sky has cleared and the moon shines. I see their pale faces amongst the trees. They smile broadly at me, their eyes shining in the light. Their hands reach to me, like pale worms from the black ground. They smile, their teeth glistening.

I close my eyes, squeezing my eyelids as tightly as possible. Wishing it all to go away.

 

It’s morning when I open my eyes again. The world is stark white and black, there isn’t a single footstep in the snow besides my own. I get up, the taste in my mouth is sour, like bile that rises at the back of the throat. I have no appetite for the meagre food I gathered before leaving home.

I continue walking through the forest, uncertain of the direction by which I came, but still, I must walk. After some time, I find a creek, it runs despite the cold that has the world in its grasp. I walk up stream, at least now I have a trail to follow – yet I do not know where it leads.

 

-

He stands amongst the trees, watching me.

I think him to be the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed. All I know and care to fathom are those pale hands reaching to me.

He gifts me with a red smile, those lips, like rubies and crimson apples. How can I not reach back?

-

 

My feet and hands are numb, they ache when I stumbled against a jutting root. My mind is no better; it wanders when I don’t focus, spinning to some unknown thoughts and I swear that they escape into the world about me; I see the shadows shift, there is a glimpse of white limbs and pale smiling faces with wide hollow eyes, peering from behind the black trees. I shake myself from the thoughts and bring the world back into focus. 

There is a sound coming from the forest, a sort of sound that someone could have compared to a moan. It’s followed by a muffled wet echo, like the lapping of a dog’s tongue.

I don’t want to know what it is. I don’t want to see it. But I know that I must.

Softly, I walk amongst the trees, following the sound of the wet choking gulps. My steps are gentle and I scarcely breathe.

It’s so stark against the black trees, the figure bowing over the prey held within its grasp.

After so long I can’t instantly comprehend the human shape that I witness before me. I don’t quite understand it for a moment, the white flesh and hair, the hands like claws braced in the carcass.

I see it lean away, one hand stroking over the body of the prey, I can see its face and I cannot be surprised to find it so human.

There is red staining the white flesh and cloth, it’s all over the creature’s chin and lips, congealing down over the neck and breast. It draws its clawed hands over the carcass, like a gentle caress shared between two lovers, trailing the thickening pools of red. 

It leans away, allowing light to cast over the carcass and then I see it. I see the contours and the lines of my father’s face where he lies in the snow. There is blood spilling from his neck and down across his chest. His eyes are shut as if he is sleeps, his face is smooth and calm. The sinews of his throat are exposed, fraying from his neck, gushing and trembling the mutilated flesh in a mockery of life.

There is such intimacy in the eyes of the creature that looms over my father’s body that I almost turn away, but I can’t find myself able to move, I can’t look away from the perfect picture of horror. I watch the fair one lean in and press a kiss to my father’s brow, the red hand brushes against his cheek, leaving a smear of crimson behind.  

The creature steps from the carcass, the white robes brush over the splayed limbs. Those pale eyes fix upon me – there is nothing within them that I could call human. It simply watches me, and then, a smile splits those bloodied lips revealing red teeth. A hand reaches for me.

**Author's Note:**

> Go ahead and pester me on [tumblr](http://homicidalmonday.tumblr.com/)


End file.
